


Can You Hear What I Hear?

by ladykiki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, loss of hearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 11:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5624710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladykiki/pseuds/ladykiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hunt goes wrong and leaves Sam at a bit of a disadvantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can You Hear What I Hear?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "loss of hearing" square on my h/c_bingo card. I maybe shouldn't have been hording these, but I was putting off editing. Procrastination's a valid excuse, right?

When Sam announced to Dean that the object causing trouble was a rock, he hadn’t expected to have to fight a ghost to destroy it. His fingertip brushed the edge just before invisible hands yanked him back and tossed him into the wall. 

The rock skittered across the table and bounced to the floor. Then started to pulse. The rock was small, opaque, and a reddish-rust color. There was no reason it should have suddenly started emitting a white-ish blue light that flared brighter and darker, and an almost electric zing of anxiety ignited every nerve in Sam’s body. 

And that was before the pulses started coming closer together. 

“Dean!” he yelled, and winced at a crash from the other room. He strained against the invisible hold pining him to the wall, of half a mind to snatch the thing up and chuck it God knew where, the other half desperately wanting Dean—whether to save the day or get out of dodge, though, he couldn’t say, the impulses clashing as time ran out. 

The pulses reached seizure-inducing, then became a steady glow. Sam really, earnestly hoped his brother was far enough away to escape the effects of whatever was about to happen. Then the glow vanished and the rock—exploded. 

Sam had just enough time to register the rush of energy, of displaced air, before it reached him with all the subtlety of a freight train, to feel the painful pressure against his chest and ears, nose and mouth and eyes, to feel it growing, expanding—

And then there was nothing. 

*

He woke abruptly to a hand on his chest, jack-knifing as his eyes flew open. His mouth moved, an instinctive call for his brother, but there wasn’t any sound. 

The figure at his side moved, then, drawing his attention. Sam relaxed into the press of Dean’s hand, allowed it to keep him horizontal. What happened? he asked, felt the strain of the words in his throat. 

Now that he was paying attention, his head ached like it’d met a concrete wall and every muscle in his body felt tender, kind of like he’d gone a few rounds with a meat tenderizer. 

He craned his head a little to see the damage, make sure everything was still attached—it looked like it was, thank God—and realized his brother hadn’t answered. 

Sam turned quickly, fear spiking his heart rate because a silent Dean was a bad Dean, in time to see Dean’s mouth form curve around the familiar shape of his name. He just didn’t hear it.

Pushing up on his elbow, Sam reached for Dean’s throat, pressing against it while he watched Dean’s lips. His brother’s brow furrowed, then lifted— _What the hell are you doing, Sam?_ —but he didn’t say the words. Sam really needed him to say the words.

Say something, he demanded.

What, Sam? His brother said. He could feel the vibrations under his fingers, see the curl of lips and tongue. He just couldn’t hear it. 

He couldn’t hear. How was he supposed to hunt if he couldn’t hear? He’d given up everything for the hunt, everything but his brother. He couldn’t give up Dean, too.

His fingers curled in the leather of Dean’s jacket tight enough to turn his fingers white. 

Dean shifted, trying to put himself in Sam’s eye line, but that threatened to pull Dean’s jacket from his grip. He yanked it closer. I can’t hear, he said. He said it, he knew he said it, could feel the strain of the words in his throat, but he couldn’t hear it. Dean, I can’t hear. I can’t hear. I can’t—

Strong hands gripped the sides of his face, forcing him to look straight at Dean. _Sam_ , his brother’s lips said. _You’re okay._ He wasn’t, but he dragged his gaze up to Dean’s eyes, his brother’s gaze certain as bedrock and twice as determined, and forced a deep breath, forced another when that one shuddered in and out. He nodded.

Dean clapped his shoulder, then slipped it around behind his arm. Sam pushed up and got his feet under him, let his brother pull him up to standing. They were still in the house. Half of the table was missing; the other half had tumbled onto its side against the wall to the left of the one Sam had been pinned to. The carpet where the stone had been was incinerated. The stone itself was gone. 

Dean’s hand stayed curled around his bicep as his brother tugged him forward. Sam didn’t try to shake him off, feeling more grounded with the weight of Dean’s hand against his body, more like he had a wall at his back, even though he didn’t. When Sam started walking on his own, following Dean’s nudge, Dean let him lead, hand pressed into the center of Sam’s back. It stayed there until they reached the car and Sam folded into the passenger seat. 

His shoulders came down from around his ears as the seat molded around his body, warm and familiar as nothing else in his life was, save Dean. He inhaled the scent of leather and gun oil and huffed a laugh, because of course the Impala smelled like Dean. 

Suddenly, the driver’s side door opened and Dean swung in. The car dipped sharply, rocking Sam to the left. The movement, minus the creak, was strangely disconcerting. Dean dropped a notepad in his lap before he could examine the feeling too closely. 

_Can you hear anything?_ Dean had written across it. _Ringing? Buzzing? The Hallelujah Chorus?_

Sam snorted but shook his head. As far as he could hear, the world was holding its breath.

Dean snaked the notebook. _There’s some blood in your ears_ , Sam read over his shoulder. _Think the pressure popped your eardrums._

He was a little surprised Dean didn’t stop him from investigating. His ear still felt like an ear, though, like his ear, and when his fingertips encountered something wet, they came back red. 

Dean held up a new page. _Pain?_

Sam shook his head. He licked his lips and tasted blood, wiped his hand under his nose and smeared more blood. When he looked at his brother, Dean had scrawled _nose bleed_ under _pain._ Sam’s memory was sketchy, though some—most—of it had come back, but he remembered the pressure. He was thinking, and trying not to think about it too hard, that if the pressure had been strong enough to burst his eardrums, he was probably lucky it hadn’t burst anything else—like his eyes, or his brain. 

He nodded.

Dean reclaimed the notebook to scribble something else. _Doctor?_

Sam hesitated, but there wasn’t really a decision. He couldn’t hunt like this. He wouldn’t be able to hear the monsters coming. He wouldn’t be able to hear when Dean needed him. He couldn’t watch Dean’s back like this. It could be burst eardrums or it could be something else, could be temporary or permanent, and Sam needed to know. He nodded. 

Dean’s shoulders came down as he nodded, his lips curling around an _ok_ Sam couldn’t hear. Dean patted Sam’s leg before twisting the key in the ignition and gripping the steering wheel, a gesture that was equal parts _you’re okay_ and __good boy and _everything’s going to be fine._ Vintage Dean.

Sam slouched in the seat now that they were moving, tilted his head back against the seat, and let his eyes drift closed. He didn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep, not with the way the unknown jangled against his nerves. But he could feet the purr of the Impala’s engine, even if he couldn’t hear it, and he felt the tension easing. He couldn’t have said when he drifted off, but it was a gentler descent than the last time. 

*

Dean’s touch was what woke him. Groggily, he climbed out of the car and let Dean guide him into the hospital. He’d stiffened up while he slept, and now each step pulled at tight, unhappy muscles along his back and down the backs of his thighs, around his hips and over his shoulders. Breathing hurt, too, though it was only the same low-grade ache as the rest of him, and his head felt like it’d been filled with sand. 

Dean left him in a chair in the waiting room while he went to get Sam checked-in. The air was cold, even through Sam’s layers, and Sam’s nose twitched at the combined smell of sick and antiseptic. There were forty uncomfortable plastic chairs and half of them were filled. The people waiting with him talked, doors opened and closed, nurses came and went, and Sam couldn’t hear any of it. It made him feel strung tight and on edge.

It was better when Dean sat down next to him, and better still when he snagged a pinch of Dean’s jacket. He caught Dean staring at him, hunched forward over his knees and wearing his serious Concerned Brother face. After a moment, Dean shook his head and rolled his eyes, lips forming words Sam couldn’t follow, but then he pressed his knee to Sam’s leg, leaned back and cupped his hand over Sam’s eyes, like he had when Sam was a kid and he was trying to get Sam to go to sleep.

Man, Dean, he whined, hopefully quietly. I’ve done nothing but sleep.

Dean drummed his fingers against Sam’s temple but otherwise didn’t move. Surrendering, Sam let his eyes close and his head thump back against the wall. It was dark until Dean took his hand away, then the fluorescents turned the backs of his eyelids red. 

He couldn’t listen to the conversations around him to pass the time, so Sam mentally counted to one hundred, then tried to recite the entire Rituale Romanum. He must’ve fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing he knew a priest was standing in front of him, hand extended, making the sign of the cross. 

“Though I walk through the shadow of the Valley of Death,” John murmured, “I shall fear no Evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” He stood when he saw Sam, stared directly into Sam’s eyes. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

_“Exorcizo te, immundissime spiritus, omnis incursion—”_

Dean’s hand pulled him back to the hospital. His eyes felt gritty. His arms and legs didn’t want to move. John wasn’t there.

They got him back to an exam room. Doctors and nurses poked him and prodded, ran tests, and asked questions he couldn’t hear. Dean answered most of them. Eventually, they produced a pen and paper and expected him to participate.

When they wheeled him down for a CAT scan, Sam wished he’d told Dean no.

*

Do you think some of it’s magical? he asked later, without thinking. 

Dean was driving. Unless the answer was yes or no, Dean couldn’t say it, not in a way Sam could understand, and the tense press of his lips said Dean knew that. A minute later, Dean pulled off to the side of the road. He snatched the pen and pad off the dashboard. He didn’t look happy when he flipped it around for Sam to read.

_Won’t know until you eardrums heal._

Right. The doctors had said he had ruptured both his eardrums, which made sense with what had happened, but Sam couldn’t help but feel like that was too simple. It had been a magical artifact that had exploded. Surely, there had to be some consequence beyond the mundane. 

_If it is, we’ll deal with it, Sam_ , Dean added. _We always do._

And, ok, Sam wasn’t five anymore, wasn’t ten or fifteen or, hell, even twenty-three, but Dean met his gaze steadily, and Sam had always found comfort in a Dean that believed. Dean would always fight for what he believed in. As long as that included him, Sam thought he could maybe hold onto that promise and believe it, too. Like he did all of Dean’s promises.


End file.
